One rank, one pension scheme pushes up defence pension bill: The Hindu News
The implementation of one rank, one pension has pushed up the Centre’s defence pension payments by a record 40 per cent, posing fresh challenges to Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley’s resolve to keep the Centre’s fiscal deficit within the budgetary target of 4.1 per cent of the Gross Domestic Product.
The armed forces pensions bill for the first six months of the current fiscal, from April to September, has turned out to be about Rs. 8,000 crore higher than for the corresponding period last year. Mr. Jaitley had provided only Rs. 1,000 crore for the whole year towards the scheme in the Budget he presented on July 10. The Finance Ministry is revising upwards its Budget estimate for the outgo on account of the scheme that benefits nearly 24 lakh pensioners of the armed forces.
The defence pensions bill for 2014-15 can be roughly expected to go up by about Rs. 16,000 crore over last year’s, the source said. The Budget estimated defence pensions during 2014-15 to be Rs. 50,966.95 crore as against Rs. 44,475.95 crore the previous year.
The austerity measures do not cover pensions and the challenge for Mr. Jaitley will be to find fresh resources for the rapidly rising bill.
“Defence pensions payments normally do not go up so drastically. Though some increase was expected on account of the new scheme, the rise is turning out to be manifold,” the source said.
One rank, one pension means soldiers of the same rank and the same length of service get the same pension, irrespective of their retirement date.
The decision to implement the scheme was first announced by former Finance Minister P. Chidambaram in the UPA government’s interim Budget he had presented in February this year. Mr. Chidambaram had allocated Rs. 500 crore for it. “This decision will be implemented prospectively from the financial year 2014-15,” he had said while presenting the vote on account ahead of the elections.
Source: The Hindu
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COMMENTS
It is not clear as to how various figures are being released by people bent upon torpedoing the commitment of the Govt Of India regarding OROP ?On one hand The Hnourable Prime Minister Announced that OROP has been implemented by his Govt , and more or less the same time The Honourable Defence cum Finance Minister talked of the issue being handed over to a Tribunal? This obviously means that The Civil Services nexus does not want this to be implemented and have already confused the Honourable Defence/Finance Minister by stating that this will cost Rs 50000 Crores .The fact as emerging ow is that it will be Approx8000 crores per year as stated by the Ex Servicemen League .Cant the Govt Of India think of taking on this extra expenditure for persons who gave their lives /best years to the service of the Nation ?Will the Honourable Prime Minister please take note ?
This is a wrong news. No soldier or officer has received any single penny extra as OROP till to date, i.e 03 Nov 2014.